The present invention relates to an improved screen change apparatus and method which permit a quick screen change or switchover in a tone reproduction apparatus such as a digital mixer, and more particularly to a technique for performing screen change control through operation or activation of a tab switch.
In many conventionally-known electronic sound signal processing apparatus, such as digital mixers, designed to reproduce musical tones, a tab (tab switch) is affixed to each of a great many screens (screen pages) showing respective current settings and operating states of a number of signal processing channels. When a user desires to ascertain the current settings and operating states of any desired one of the signal processing channels, he or she can operate or activate one of the tabs (tab switches) that corresponds to the desired processing channel, to thereby switch over to a display screen of the desired processing channel.
However, many of the conventional screen change techniques are only intended to switch between functions of the apparatus using the tabs (tab switches), in accordance with which the user has to perform a plurality of screen switching actions in order to switch over to a desired screen through the tab operation. Some of the conventional screen change techniques are arranged to permit a switchover to two screens of opposite natures through two screen switching actions, but, in this case, only a small number, equal to “the number of the tabs×2”, of screens can be provided, so that the number of available screens is limited considerably.